Two sisters. Two parallel stories. Of escaping from the war in Ukraine, of life that turns upside down in an instant and makes you lose everything and of the welcome today in Caritas-Spes . Olena and Olha lived in Mariupol: “On February 24, we didn’t even realize the war had started, we thought they would just shoot for a couple of days.” Instead, things are very different and just a few days later they become aware of it: no electricity, no gas, interrupted communications and little drinking water. “we found ourselves in a void.” On March 12, a bomb fell near Olena’s home: “When we walked around our building, there was a wasteland on the site of the adjacent building. My son-in-law and I ran halfway across the city to another neighborhood, but our relatives’ homes there were also damaged.” Up to the 23 March the two women live in an air raid shelter, that day they realize that staying in Mariupol has become too dangerous, Olena recalls: “A Russian tank fired directly into our basement and broke through a wall. The house above us was on fire.”
The next day – March 24 – they set off, and in their escape they pass through a city marked by war, “Mariupol was so beautiful and they just destroyed it. They took everything from us, and most importantly, our memories. I would walk home if they told me that Mariupol is Ukrainian again.”
Olena is 60 years old, has a degree in mechanical engineering, and was a foreman in a company: “We were never rich, but everything was fine for us. I am a grandmother, I have two grandchildren and I wanted to leave them something, like all grandparents do, but now I have nothing. Why? What did we do to get here? No one could have imagined that the Russians could do all this to us.” Her sister Olha would also return to their city immediately if it were possible, she worked as an educator in a kindergarten that was destroyed: “I will never forgive those who bombed us.”
Olena and Olha are living this time of waiting for their return in one of the centers of Caritas-Spes Ukraine, to which the contributions collected by the Emergency Coordination of the Focolare Movement through AMU and AFN are allocated. The women constantly receive targeted assistance, like all those who have found hospitality here after having had to abandon their homes : food, medicines, hygiene products, psychological support and a little peace and quiet. (The text is a summary of the article published on the Caritas-Spes Ukraine website, from which the photographs are also taken)